Landmark trial sees senior former Shell executives and CEO of Eni in the dock
for billion dollar Nigerian oil deal

Royal
Dutch Shell and Italian oil giant Eni have been ordered to stand trial in Milan
on charges of aggravated international corruption for their role in a 2011
$1.1bn deal for Nigerian oil block OPL 245. Mrs Justice Barbara handed down the
ruling today. The judge set March 5 as the date for the trial to begin.

Eni’s
current CEO Claudio Descalzi, former CEO Paolo Scaroni, Chief Operations and
Technology Officer Roberto Casula were also ordered to face trial alongside
four Royal Dutch Shell former staff members including Malcolm Brinded CBE, former
Executive Director for Upstream International and two former MI6 agents
employed by Shell.

No
company as large as Royal Dutch Shell or such senior executives of a major oil
company have ever stood trial for bribery offences.

The
investigation by the Milan public prosecutor was triggered by a complaint filed
in Autumn 2013 by Global Witness, The Corner House, Re:Common and Nigerian
anti-corruption campaigner Dotun Oloko. The case has also been investigated in
Nigeria and the United States following the groups’ complaints. Public
prosecutors in The Netherlands are also investigating the case.

“The
Nigerian people lost out on over $1 billion dollars, equivalent to the
country’s entire health budget, as a result of this corrupt deal. They deserve
to know the truth about what happened to their missing millions. We welcome the prosecutor’s efforts to bring
this case to trial. It will be the biggest corporate bribery trial in history –
and act as a warning to others who see corruption as a route for quick
financial wins”, said Simon Taylor, co-founder of Global Witness.

In a
statement today Shell said “We are disappointed by the outcome of the
preliminary hearing and the decision to indict Shell and its former
employees. We believe the trial judges
will conclude that there is no case against Shell or its former employees.”

Eni
said “Eni’s Board of Directors has reaffirmed its confidence that the company
was not involved in alleged corrupt activities in relation to the transaction.
The Board of Directors also confirmed its full confidence that chief executive
Claudio Descalzi was not involved in the alleged illegal conduct and, more
broadly, in his role as head of the company. Eni expresses its full confidence
in the judicial process and that the trial will ascertain and confirm the
correctness and integrity of its conduct.”

Antonio
Tricarico of Italian NGO Re:Common said, “Prime Minister Renzi
was utterly wrong in 2014 when he defended Mr Descalzi’s appointment as Eni’s
CEO, by warning that it would ‘not allow a media scoop to put jobs at risk, or
a notice of investigation issued on newspapers to change the business policy of
a country’. If the deal for OPL 245 represents business as usual for Italy’s
biggest company, partly controlled by the government, prosecutors were right to
investigate and right to bring this matter before the courts. Renzi should
apologise to the Italian and Nigerian public”.

“This case heralds the dawning of the age of
accountability, a world where even the most powerful corporations can no longer
hide their wrongdoing and avoid justice.” Said Lanre Suraju, Chairman of
Nigerian NGO Human and Environmental Development Agenda.

For
years, Shell had claimed that it only paid the Nigerian Government for the oil
block. But after the joint investigations of Global Witness and Finance
Uncovered, Shell confessed it had dealt with former oil minister Dan Etete, via
his front company Malabu. Dan Etete was convicted of money laundering in France
in 2007. Etete had awarded the OPL 245 oil block to his secretly owned company
while serving as oil minister.

In
December 2016, the Milan Public Prosecutor alleged that $520 million from the
deal was converted into cash and intended to be paid to the then Nigerian
President Goodluck Jonathan, members of the government and other Nigerian
government officials. The prosecutor further alleges that money was
also channelled to Eni and Shell executives with $50 million
in cash delivered to the home of Eni’s then Head of Business for Sub-Saharan
Africa, Roberto Casula.

Nigerian
authorities have also filed charges against a Shell subsidiary and Eni as well
as several of their staff. In January Nigerian law enforcement also charged
Mohammed Adoke, the former Nigerian Minister of Justice and Attorney General
with money laundering over his receipt of $2.2m in alleged proceeds of the OPL
245 deal.

The
Nigerian government successfully recovered US$85m in proceeds of the deal from
the UK. The money had previously been frozen as suspected proceeds of crime at
the request of Italian authorities. The Nigerian government has also issued a
billion dollar civil claim against JP Morgan for their role as a banker to the
deal. JP Morgan has stated that they consider the allegation against them to be
“unsubstantiated and without merit”.

“This is not a case
involving a few rotten apples,” said Nick Hildyard of Corner House. “The
evidence points to systemic corruption – from the top down. In this case Italy
has championed the rule of law over abusive corporate power. The world waits to
see if the UK and The Netherlands, where Shell is based, will have the backbone
to follow suit.”

/ ENDS

Contacts

General/out of hours media enquiries

Barnaby Pace, Oil Campaigner

Notes to editor:

In December 2016 money laundering charges
were filed by Nigerian law enforcement against Dan Etete and the former
Nigerian Attorney General and Justice Minister Mohammed Adoke. In a statement
in December 2016, Mohammed Adoke said: “I hope to at the appropriate time make
myself available to defend the charge for whatever its worth.” He also
emphasised that he did not benefit from the deal, which he said saved the
government from a breach of contract suit in which Shell was claiming $2
billion. He called the charges "orchestrated plans to bring me to public
disrepute in order to satisfy the whims and caprices of some powerful interests
on revenge mission." The full statement from Mohammed Adoke is available
at http://thenationonlineng.net/malabu-will-come-defend-adoke/